Nextreme is shipping a miniature heat pump for cooling opto chips.
"The module can create a temperature differential of up to 51°C between its hot and cold sides, making it suited for the cooling and temperature control of devices such as laser diodes for transmission and photodiodes for sensing," said the firm.
The OptoCooler HV14 can pump up to 1.5W of heat and operates at a maximum voltage of 2.7V and a peak current of around 1A, with a footprint of 2.8mm2. HV stands for high voltage.
"At the core of the module is our thermal copper pillar bump that acts as a solid-state heat pump to add thermal management locally on the surface of a chip or other electrical component," said Nextreme. "By cooling at the source with the smallest devices on the market, customers are offered a unique approach to solving thermal design challenges."
"The HV14 can operate at 2.5V at 25°C and 2.9V at 85°C. Nextreme's previous models required millivolt operating voltages, which required special driver circuitry," a spokeswoman explained to Electronics Weekly.